Does David Haas count?

Maybe we should lay out the rule of "no living composers."

My least favourite composers Ferde Grofe and Aaron Copland, and their kin - and people like Mr Haugen.

Whitcare, anyone?

Bruckner is awesome tho... It is sort of an acquired taste, though. It is quite the music.

I still don't like Bach...

Which one?

It's good to see that I'm not alone in my dislike of Copland. Every time I am subjected to Appalachian Spring, a soul is released from Purgatory.

I suppose it's trendy to dislike Wagner, but I really dislike Wagner for being too loud and pompous and going on too long. It's for that very reason that I'm not especially fond of Beethoven either.

For sheer damage done to music at large, that prize goes to fellow New Englander Lowell Mason. The irony is that he did great things for music education, while composing music not worth teaching.

(I am restricting myself to composers whose works are typically found in church music.)

There's a chunk of mid-20th century Anglican-ish hymnody I am not fond of; I take RVW's unfortunate setting of Hail Thee Festival Day as a precursor. Something curdled after World War I in this regard. And then dreck like Festival Canticle came afterwards. These are hymns that organists seem to have orgasms over, but that are more like tiresome vocalises for singers* - and, as a general rule, I am most unfond of music where it's obvious that it's about the instruments and where the human voice is more of an accompaniment (the ultimate fruit of which can be seen in a fair chunk of contempo liturgicalish music). If it doesn't sound good a cappella, be wary.

* Also see: Handel's choral tenor parts (an interesting example, because Handel was otherwise discriminating when to treat the human voice more like a mere instrument) and also, sad to say, parts of JS Bach's choruses (where lapsing into the voice like a mere instrument is a more common occurrence, though with marvelous effects at times).

Does David Haas count?

Are writers of ad jingles composers?
A friend of mine, as a child, misheard his "All the Ends" and wondered why all the ants of the earth would be singing the power of God.

Casavant--Definitely Whitacre is on the list. He's not intolerable like the atonal or sacro-pop fellows mentioned, but he seems to think that minor seconds, cluster chords, and soaring high notes automatically render a piece ethereally gorgeous, and it's his being overrated that bothers me. I don't find his work to be just so-so on an intellectual level.

Then there's Schumann...when he's happy it comes across as too sentimental, and when he's angry it sounds like a tantrum. Same goes for Mendelssohn, piano and vocal pieces.

I used to dread Palestrina, thinking his chord progression choices were very dull. But then I started listening to the other parts while singing!

Similarly with Mozart (does anyone like Alberti bass?), whom I used to loathe until I switched from listening to piano to orchestral/chamber works.

Offenbach, anyone?

almost all "serious' composers after the Baroque era. It all went down hill. The art of counterpoint, in general, fell by the wayside.

I do like the theory of Poulenc, Barber, Stravinsky, Faurre, Debussy, Langlais and a few others.

I've had very little to say in the previous "least favourite" threads, although at least they dealt with individual works (anthems, hymn tunes/harmonizations). The problem with coming up with least favourite composers is compounded many times by the mere fact that a composer typically has a rather large body of work to assess. And, quite frankly, I wonder just how many actually have sifted through the complete works of those they name as least least favourites. Already, I've read comments where people have hedged on a least favoured composer's status.

Do I have ANY least favoured composer? I don't really know. There are not that many composers whose works I know thoroughly ... there are several, but not many. So, because I may not like a particular composer's very few works that I do know, I would not feel comfortable with calling such a composer a least favourite. Furthermore, if indeed there is a composer (and there are such) who has at least one work that I value highly among (perhaps many) other works by that composer that I do not care for, I would not wish to call such a composer a least favourite.

So, for example, if you like any (or even several) of the Bruckner motets but dislike his symphonies (some of which I value highly because of Bruckner's contrapuntal and harmonic genius), then it seems rather unfair to name Bruckner as a least favourite.

however, my least favorite era of song writers (i do not even put them in the category of composers), is the VII and forward conglomerate of ditty kiddies.

Noel Rawsthorne.

I still don't enjoy Mozart.

I love Mozart's Requiem, but not as a Mass setting… It's too decadent and "operatic", for lack of a better term.

Mozart sounds choppy to me.

And repetitive.

I like long sweeping lines in my music.

Ah, Mozart... My own relationship with Mozart is love-hate (nom de plume not withstanding).

I think he would have been much more to my liking had he lived longer and really sunk his teeth into the church job he had in Vienna in his last years, (Was it St. Stephen's? I can't remember.) as I've come to discover that the music of Mozart's that I really like is from about 1783 (the year of the Mass in c, KV 427) onward, and since he died in 1791 that doesn't leave much time; but during that time I think counterpoint became more prominent; however, I also like his early Missae for Salzburg -- some nice Stille Antico stuff there.

I think that the two instruments Mozart seemed to enjoy composing for the most were the Voice and the Clarinet/Basset Horn, I think often it's the most original and inspired. Maybe that is why I like his operas, church music, and clarinet works; or, it could just be that I like his vocal and clarinet music, so I ascribe to it originality and inspiration. However, some (or much) of his piano music or orchestral music I detest.

It would indeed be fascinating to know how Mozart would have developed had he lived a full life. I've always felt that his untimely departure from this life was a great loss to posterity. Already, it seems to me, there are hints of Beethoven in his last symphonies. On the other hand, Haydn, who died in 1809, seems not to have been overly touched by the dawn of romanticism.

Pachelbel rather leaves me wishing for more music. He is pleasant, but there is little or no substance. I say this even though I'm doing his f-minor ciacona on a recital in several weeks. I really wish I hadn't programmed it because it really doesn't fit in with everything else on this all renaissance and baroque program which ends with Bach's great c-minor prelude and fugue. (I assume that everyone knows that, though he was Lutheran, he was for a time an organist at St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna - there was much more tolerance amongst educated people in those days than we sometimes think.)

Has no one mentioned Györgi Ligeti yet?

It seems to me that those who can't get beyond the adolescently cynical I-IV-V-I could only wish that they could do with that progression what Mozart did.
And, of course, his music really goes far beyond such a rather dumb caricature.
(Which only proves that we all have 'blind spots' in our minds.)

.

Admittedly I haven't listened to all of Mozart, but almost everything I have says, "Here's a short motif. Now I shall repeat it any number of times with slight alterations."

Ain't nobody got time for that.

Did someone say Ligeti? Have you heard Matt Curtis's rendition of Ligeti's Lux Aerterna?

https://www.facebook.com/matt.curtis.923/videos/846073277070/

I have a personal vendetta against Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck.

Does that count?

So much philistinism in a single thread!

This isn't a "bad composers" thread.

It's a least-favorite composers thread.

There's a difference

But Mozart-bashing? Seriously, guys...

I wouldn't call Mozart a church music composer in any form. That Coronation Mass, much beloved by local traddies, is a concert piece that belongs on a stage. Likewise, that dreaded Mozart, Alleluia (Exsultate, jubilate K.165). I have nightmares of screeching sopranos warbling and wobbling around while singing that piece.